SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Canary Islands has reached the figure of 9,500 photovoltaic self-consumption installations, a figure that represents a total power of 86 megawatts, as reflected in the figures offered by the General Directorate of Energy as of March 8, 2023.
The Minister of Ecological Transition, the Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands, José Antonio Valbuena, together with the Regional Director of Energy, Rosana Melián, has detailed that in the first three months of this year a rhythm has been achieved of twenty new installations per day, “which reflects the growing interest that has existed on the part of the Canarian population for this type of infrastructure that allows the energy self-sufficiency of companies and homes on the islands”.
José Antonio Valbuena has pointed out that this circumstance has even greater value if the photovoltaic panorama that existed in September 2019 is analyzed, when there were barely 400 installations of this type in the Archipelago, with a total power of 9.3 megawatts (MW). .
“Such is the progress that we have achieved in terms of clean energy that we can currently announce that we are only 55 megawatts away from reaching one gigawatt of installed renewable power, or what is the same, approaching 30% of generation” Valbuena added.
For her part, Rosana Melián stressed that in this circumstance the large number of aids offered by all the Canary Islands administrations in these four years have played a fundamental role and, on the other hand, the world energy situation that has been experienced as a consequence of the war between Ukraine and Russia.
The Government of the Canary Islands currently maintains different open aids related to the Next Generation Funds and this type of renewable energy. On the one hand, there is the incentive program linked to self-consumption and storage (https://sede.gobiernodecanarias.org/sede/procedimientos_serv…). On the other, there is a line of aid specifically focused on promoting shared self-consumption and energy communities on the islands (https://sede.gobiernodecanarias.org/sede/procedimientos_serv…).
DATA BY ISLANDS
If the data is analyzed by island, there are also significant trends, both in the capital and non-capital islands. The island of Tenerife is the one that has experienced the greatest growth, going from 155 installations in 2019 (2.58 MW) to 3,774 installations in March 2023 (26.94 MW). The next one has been Gran Canaria, which started in 2019 with 230 installations (5.03 MW) and in 2023 it has already reached the milestone of 3,277 installations (36.18 MW).
The island of Lanzarote had 84 installations (2.55 MW) in 2019 and has already exceeded the figure of 840 installations (9.03 MW). In the case of Fuerteventura, the evolution has been from 43 installations (1.47 MW) to 924 (9.19 MW. La Palma started in 2019 with 46 photovoltaic installations (0.77 MW) and already has 491 (3, 1 MW).
The island of La Gomera barely had three photovoltaic installations in 2019 (0.04 MW) and in 2023 it already counted 114 (1.12 MW). Lastly, El Hierro has evolved from five facilities (0.06 MW) in 2019 to 59 facilities (0.35 MW) at the beginning of March 2023.
